Multinational companies have a major challenge of managing global-talent effectively. Movement of employees between countries is limited and many people have a fear that this movement will damage their career prospects (Guthridge and Komm, 2008). Guthridge and Komm shows a strong correlation between financial performance as measured by profit per employee and companies that achieved the best scores on a survey of their global-talent-management practices. Companies who scores high in this correlation have competency in three areas : the creation of globally consistent talent evaluation processes, the management of cultural diversity, and the mobility of global leaders. Global consistency in a company's talent evaluation processes is important. Companies should focus hard on rotating talent globally across divisions and geographies. It will promote greater cultural awareness and diversity. Research showed that companies who encourage managers by providing incentives to gain international experience are twice as better in global mobility practices than those who don't.
Sune Karlsson’s, a vice president of ABB in Germany has the same philosophy of knowledge sharing (Taylor, 1991). He has made strategic purchasing a priority. ABB expects zero defect suppliers, just-in-time deliveries, and price increases lower than 75% of inflation – major advantages that it is in a position to win with intelligent coordination. Karlsson believes these and other “hard” advantages may be less significant than the “soft” advantages of global coordination. He emphasizes on creating a process of continuous expertise transfer. According to him, sharing expertise does not happen automatically. It takes trust and familiarity. People need to spent time together, to get to know an understand each other. It is to demonstrate that sharing pays – that contributing one idea gets 24 in return.
Trust can be created if there is a social and civil environment. Berated bosses who take credit for others’ work can cut a swath of destruction that’s often visible only to the immediate victims (Porath and Pearson, 2009). Survey carried out to see the impact of incivility on performance showed that rude behavior of managers and employees decreased to a large extent, work effort, work time, work quality and performance of the employees. Therefore, in this era of globalization, companies should focus on the key issues regarding managing global talent, encouraging knowledge sharing, and establishing civil and social work environment.
Referrences:
Guthridge, M. and Komm, A.B. (2008), “Why multinationals struggle to manage talent”, Mickinsey & Company.
Taylor, W. (1991), “Power Transformers—The Dynamics of Global Coordination”, Harvard Business Review, Vol.69, Issue 2, p96-97, 2p; (AN 19119416)
Porath, C. and Pearson, C. (2009), “ How Toxic Colleagues Corrode Performance”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 87 Issue 4, p24-24, 1/2p; (AN37021575)